Destiny Rising (The Vampire Diaries 10)

It was a clear, starry night, and everything seemed peaceful so far.

"Sorry I was late," Elena told Stefan, linking her arm through his. "James called just as I was leaving. He said Andres is here. I'm going to meet him tomorrow. "

Stefan opened his mouth to say something when the wolves stopped, their ears cocked, and stared into the distance. Stefan's head swung up, too. "Check it out," he told them, and Spencer and Tristan were gone, racing into the forest. Stefan and Jared stood still, alertly tracking their progress, until a howl came in the distance.

"False alarm," Jared translated, and Stefan relaxed. "An old scent. "

The two wolves came trotting back through the woods, their tails arched high over their backs. Despite being very different as humans, Tristan and Spencer made similar wolves, sleek and gray and not as large as Zander was in wolf form. Only the black tips of Spencer's ears made it possible to tell them apart.

Watching them come back, Jared hunched his shoulders and shoved his long bangs out of his eyes. "I need to learn to change without the moon," he said irritably. "I feel blind trying to scout as a human. "

"How does that work, anyway?" Elena asked curiously. "Why can some of you change without the moon, but not all of you?"

"Practice," Jared said glumly, letting his hair flop back over his face. "It's hard, and it takes a long time to learn, and I haven't managed to do it yet. We can learn how to stop ourselves from changing when the moon's full, too, but that's even harder, and they say it hurts. Nobody does that unless it's really necessary. "

Spencer sniffed the breeze again and gave a short bark. Jared laughed, not bothering to translate. Stefan turned to follow their gaze, and Elena wondered what Stefan and the wolves - even Jared - could sense in the night that she couldn't. She was the only true human here, she realized, and so the blindest of them all.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Stefan asked as they started walking again. "To meet Andres?"

Elena shook her head. "Thanks, but I think I should do this by myself. " If she was going to become something new, she had to be strong enough to face it alone.

They patrolled the woods throughout the night without finding any vampires or any bodies. As dawn began to break over the horizon, Elena could see the two wolves plodding along next to her in the dim light, their heads hanging low. She was so sleepy, she held on to Stefan's arm for support and just focused on moving one foot in front of the other. Then Spencer's and Tristan's heads snapped up and they began to run, lean muscles stretching under their gray fur.

"Did they smell vampires?" Elena asked Jared, alarmed, but he shook his head.

"It's just the others," he said, and then he was running, too, faster than Elena could go.

As she and Stefan came over the next small hill, Elena could see the edge of the woods and the campus stretching out ahead of her again. She'd been so tired that she hadn't realized they'd looped back around. Halfway down the hill, Spencer and Tristan were greeting the great white wolf that was Zander and another gray wolf, their tails wagging, as Jared hurried toward them. Bonnie, Meredith, and another human-form member of Zander's Pack watched. Bonnie said something and waved them off. The werewolves, human and wolf, turned as one and ran back into the woods, Zander in the lead.

"What's that about?" Elena asked, as she and Stefan came up to Bonnie and Meredith.

"Oh, since patrol's over, they have to go change back and do Pack stuff," Bonnie said casually. "I told Zander we'd be fine. Did you find anything?"

Elena shook her head. "Everything was quiet. "

"For us, too," Meredith said, swinging her stave jauntily as they turned and began to head back toward their dorm. "Maybe the new vampires have made it through the blood-craze of changing and they'll lay low for a while. "

"I hope so," Stefan said. "Maybe we can find them before someone else dies. "

Bonnie shivered. "I know it's stupid," she said, "but I almost wish Klaus would do whatever he's going to do. I'm on edge all the time. It's like he's watching me from the shadows. "

Elena knew what Bonnie meant. Klaus was coming after them all. She knew it: she could still feel the ghostly sensation of his cold lips on hers like a promise. We've defeated Klaus before, she tried to tell herself. But a new conviction nagged at her. It was as if something inside her knew, beyond all arguing, that the life she'd lived was coming to an end.

"I'm sorry," she said impulsively to Bonnie. "Klaus wants to punish me, and so we're all in danger. This is my fault, and I don't even have any Power now to protect you all. "

Bonnie stared at her. "If it weren't for you, Klaus would have destroyed us all long ago," she said dryly.

Stefan nodded. "No one thinks this is your fault," he said.

Elena blinked. "I guess you're right," she said uncertainly.

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "And we're not total wimps, in case you hadn't noticed," she said.

"If you want to be ready to fight Klaus, maybe you should start developing your Guardian Powers," Meredith told her.

Warm sunlight was beginning to spread over the campus, and Elena instinctively slowed and straightened, tipping her face back to the sun.

Meredith was right, she realized. If she wanted to help keep her friends safe, to keep the campus safe, she needed to be stronger. She needed to be a Guardian.